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Vertigo (1958)
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by Universal Studios
Sales Rank: 8402
Price: $14.98
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Although it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958, <i>Vertigo</i> has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade <i>Sight & Sound</i> international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the most recent survey. (Universal Pictures' spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed the operative word) in love andwell, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, <i>Vertigo</i> is as lovely as it is haunting. <i>--Jim Emerson</i>
Viewer Reviews
VERTIGO is the most beautiful movie Hitchcock created, with stunningly brilliant cinematography, the magnificent costumes of Edith Head, and an unforgettable score by Bernard Hermann. It is also perhaps the greatest romantic psycho-thriller of all time.
Jimmy Stewart as a retired acrophobic cop was never more compelling, or complicated, and Kim Novak as the breathtaking, and coldly sensual Madeleine, and the much less, refined Judy, was positively mesmerizing.
The story is about a tragic love affair, murder, and madness. John, ( Stewart ) is so obsessed with his dead lover that he attempts to remake a girl ( Judy ), into his dearly-departed because of the strong physical resemblance she bears to the deceased. Judy has fallen so badly for John that she allows him to totally dictate her life ( Svengali had nothin' on this guy ). The performances of Stewart, and Novak resonate long after the movie ends ( of course, I have seen the film at least forty times... ).
I personally found D'ENTRE LES MORTS ( the book VERTIGO is based on ) to be a little hyperbolic for my taste, but Samuel Taylor's screenplay breathed life into the characters.
Much has been made about the famous 'dream sequence' in VERTIGO. The truth is that the entire movie is a dream-, haunting, rhapsodic, and powerfully hypnotic.
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Vertigo (1958)
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